They believed, and when they heard that the LORD had come to them and had seen how they were being treated cruelly, they bowed down and worshiped.

Hannah made a solemn promise: " LORD Almighty, look at me, your servant! See my trouble and remember me! Don't forget me! If you give me a son, I promise that I will dedicate him to you for his whole life and that he will never have his hair cut."

Perhaps the LORD will notice my misery and give me some blessings to take the place of his curse."

Each one will say in public, "I have sinned. I have not done right, but God spared me.

"Now at last the Lord has helped me," she said. "He has taken away my public disgrace!"

Then, a new king, who knew nothing about Joseph, came to power in Egypt.

Then the LORD said, "I have seen how cruelly my people are being treated in Egypt; I have heard them cry out to be rescued from their slave drivers. I know all about their sufferings,

and so I have come down to rescue them from the Egyptians and to bring them out of Egypt to a spacious land, one which is rich and fertile and in which the Canaanites, the Hittites, the Amorites, the Perizzites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites now live.

The righteous are guided and protected by the LORD, but the evil are on the way to their doom.

Leave your troubles with the LORD, and he will defend you; he never lets honest people be defeated.

Then I will say to them, 'I never knew you. Get away from me, you wicked people!'